Williams engineering sold to Australian miner

A part of the Formula 1 team an Australian took to glory is now owned by an Australian, with the Fortescue Minerals Group agreeing to buy Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) for £164 million ($A310 million).

Run by high-profile billionaire Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, Fortescue bought WAE for its innovative hydrogen, electrification and high-performance battery technology.

Founded by legendary Formula 1 team owner Sir Frank Williams, WAE was set up a decade ago to take specialist F1 technologies and develop them into commercially viable systems.

Forrest announced he would place WAE into his Fortescue Future Industries operation, which has made a public splash of pursuing green credentials, like ‘clean’ hydrogen, in an effort to make the iron-ore producer net-zero for carbon emissions by 2030.

Fortescue has worked with WAE since early last year, when the Oxford-based organisation designed and built a battery system for Fortescue’s first electric mining haul truck.

WAE came from Williams Grand Prix Engineering, which won its first Formula 1 world championship with Australia’s Alan Jones in 1980, though the team has not won a race since Pastor Maldonado’s freak win in Spain in 2012.

Its last driver’s world championship was with Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 and it has not contended for the championship since 2003, when Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher each won two races to give Williams second in the constructors’ title.

The last Australian to drive for Williams was Mark Webber, who scored a podium in 2005 but had 11 DNFs (did not finish) in 2006, which was enough to convince him to switch to Red Bull Racing.

WAE has gone its own way, though, and its high-performance battery technology was used in the early years of Formula E and in Extreme E this year, with Australian Molly Taylor taking out the inaugural title with teammate Johan Kristofferson.

WAE sits alongside the Williams’ GP operation and has a more prominent list of recent successes than the racing team.

It helped develop the Singaporean Vanda Dendrobium electric sports car and engineered the hybrid powertrain for the Jaguar C-X75 hybrid supercar, several examples of which it also built for the James Bond film, Spectre.

WAE also makes the batteries for ETCR, the European electric touring car championship.

Its flywheel hybrid system also dominated the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hour race with Audi (and almost won the Nurburgring 24 Hour with the Porsche 911 GT3 R in 2010), before Williams spun that off into Williams Hybrid Power, which produces the same flywheel technology for buses and trucks.

But WAE hasn’t isolated itself to the EV and hybrid space, building an all-new 4.0-litre air-cooled flat-six engine for Singer Vehicle Design’s Porsche 911-inspired cars.

Fortescue said in a statement that the WAE acquisition should enable it to become a “major player in the growing global market for green industrial transport equipment”.

One of the first projects will be to electrify Fortescue’s freight trains, its 400-tonne mining trucks and its industrial heavy equipment.

“This is the race of our lifetimes – the race to save the planet from cooking,” said Fortescue founder and chairman Forrest in a statement.

“The speed at which we move matters. Together FFI and WAE will work to decarbonize Fortescue – with the aim of achieving that faster and more effectively than anyone else in the world.

“This announcement is the key to unlocking the formula for removing fossil-fuel powered machinery and replacing it with zero carbon emission technology, powered by FFI green electricity, green hydrogen and green ammonia,” he said.

“For decades, Sir Frank Williams’ F1 racing business was at the forefront of innovation in engineering and I thank him for his pioneering vision in founding WAE over a decade ago.

“I was sorry to hear of his passing last year and I pay tribute to him. I have huge respect for him, his family and the Williams’ business.”

Sir Frank Williams sold the majority stake in WAE to EMK Capital in 2019, and Williams’ daughter Claire endorsed the sale.

“We are delighted that Fortescue are now taking over and sees the value in the company and its people in tackling some of the biggest issues facing our world today,” she said.

“I am sure that they will continue to drive considerable success through the business and achieve further results in decarbonising heavy industry and tackling the issue of global warming,” she said.

While Fortescue bought WAE for its ability to decarbonise its heavy industry, the company will still work with road and race cars, its CEO Craig Wilson insisted.

“High performance battery and electrification systems are at the core of what we do at WAE, and this acquisition and investment will enable the company’s further growth to support the delivery of zero emission products and services across existing sectors – such as automotive, motorsport and off-highway – and new sectors too,” he said.